91 
THE ADVENT OF THE FRANCISCANS IN 
ENGLAND. 
By the Rev. W. S. CAIGER. November 17th, 1885. 
There has grown up a general conviction that in comparison 
with the present age there is an absence of movement and 
development in all other eras of the history of Europe. We are 
apt in this age, to lose imperceptibly our sense of proportion. 
Yet a careful study of the Middle Ages reveals to us the fact 
that there was as much movement then as now. Men strove as 
strenuously for great social and religious objects, and felt as 
passionately the pressure of wrongs and disorder as they have 
ever striven and felt in any succeeding age. Mighty movements 
affecting many nations and many races, overpowering enthusi- 
asms, world-wide aims and aspirations form the characteristics of 
that past which seems to us so dim and so difficult to under- 
stand. It must be remembered that the modern world is 
characterised by a wonderful variety of contending interests and 
thoughts and feelings. The tendency is for each nation to live 
its own life without regard to that of others, as shewn in political 
and social institutions, in language and religion. But in medic- 
val times there was a singular unity of thought throughout 
Christendom in which differences of nationality, religious belief 
and language were almost entirely lost. There was one Church 
governed by one spiritual leader having universal authority, and 
to which every conscience was directly responsible. There was 
one universal empire which in theory at least claimed the obedi- 
ence of all the nations. There was one language by which all 
differences of race and nation were obliterated at least between 
educated men. It was owing to the unity of thought which 
characterised European history before the Renaissance that all 
great movements instead of affecting certain races or groups of 
nations like the Reformation passed over the whole of Western 
civilization. All the great movements of mediceval times are 
characterized by magnitude and universality. Among the most 
important of these, as well in their effects as in their interest 
and immediate influences were the Crusades, and the religious 
revival coeval with the rise of the Franciscans and the Domini- 
cans. In the Crusades one saw a universal religious movement 
which impelled all the populations of Europe to move in suc- 
cessive waves eastward to the Holy Land. 
In the Franciscans and Dominicans and more especially in 
the former there was the rise of a missionary movement which 
moved men to forsake all that made life worth having in order 
